I've had this Z490 desktop for a year now to test on-board Thunderbolt 3. The Vision D motherboards have Titan Ridge controller as well as PCIe 4.0. Due to interest on using Thunderbolt 3 eGPU with mining, I decided to gather up some GPUs to build an amateur mining rig. There's enough space inside for two cards, the third card was attached through a GPU vertical mounting kit. The fourth card is through Thunderbolt connection.
System specs:
2020 Gigabyte Z490 Vision D – i7-10700K/GTX 1080 Ti + RTX 2060s + RTX 2070 dGPU/16GB RAM/512GB SSD
eGPU hardware:
RTX 2080 Ti Gaming Box + .5m Thunderbolt 3 cable + ASUS USB-C FHD 15" portable monitor
Hardware pictures:
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Installation steps:
While Thunderbolt 3 eGPU can be plug-and-play on this system, Windows can throw error 12 because there are already 3x dGPUs active. In the BIOS, I set ABOVE 4GB ENCODING to ENABLED and THUNDERBOLT SECURITY settings to NO SECURITY. This helped with handling the Thunderbolt 3 eGPU during system bootup (no hang). Another optimization I did was to switch the LINK SPEED to Gen1. This was due to stability issue in Windows. Prior to this change, Windows would randomly freeze or one of the 3x dGPUs would stop working.
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The good news is mining doesn't require much bandwidth at all. Performance is ultimately down to cooling and consistent power. This system runs on a 1000W PSU which handles the 3x dGPUs with ease. As can be seen, the RTX 2070 is an ITX card. It was retracted from the first generation Gaming Box. The coolest graphics card in this setup is the eGPU with its water cooling system.
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Benchmarks:
Here's the screen capture in Nicehash Rig Manager showing the harshrate and other stats.
Comments:
Keeping a mining rig running 24/7 introduces a few concerns. Heat and noise are the most obvious. I have this in the basement where it's cooler and fan noise is no big deal. Power consumption is is another significant cost on top of equipment. I honestly don't understand why people are paying insane money to buy graphics cards in the past year. Breakeven point is many months if the market cooperates.
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I have 2 of the same Aorus 3080 eGPUs running through titan ridge expansion card just like you. I had the code 12 error until I partitioned more memory for the ports. Now the 2 extra GPUs show as working on my device manager but they don't show in MSI and mining software won't recognize the cards to use them. I've run DDU and flashed fresh drivers for all cards. TB drivers/firmware are up to date. I'm stuck. Any ideas?
To do: Create my signature with system and expected eGPU configuration information to give context to my posts. I have no builds.
.@benjamin_johnis, Which motherboard do you have? I could only connecting 1x eGPU to this desktop build. Adding more than one would cause error 12.
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• external graphics card builds
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2021 Gigabyte Z590i Vision D [11th,6C] + RTX 3060 Ti @ 32Gbps-TB4 (Gigabyte Gaming Box) + Win11 [build link]
Aorus B550 PRO AC motherboard. I've tried just one as well. I fixed the code 12 error by increasing memory to those ports via BIOS. So they show as working but how do you assign jobs to them? My device manager shows them working but the MSI engine does not. When I try to mine, the mining software doesn't read them. So I'm confused how to get them engaged.
To do: Create my signature with system and expected eGPU configuration information to give context to my posts. I have no builds.
.@benjamin_johnis, Have you tried connecting a monitor to one of the eGPUs and see whether there's monitor output? I did not have to manually assign or set anything up for the mining software to use the eGPU.
LinkedIn | Youtube | Instagram
• external graphics card builds
• best laptops for external GPU
• eGPU enclosure buyer's guide
2021 Gigabyte Z590i Vision D [11th,6C] + RTX 3060 Ti @ 32Gbps-TB4 (Gigabyte Gaming Box) + Win11 [build link]